Neither Ukraine nor Poland “needs this bread war”, said the head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kuleba, believing that the tension is fueled by the election campaign in a neighboring and allied country, reports AFP.

“We don’t need this bread war, just like Poland,” Kuleba said in an interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency published on Thursday, Agerpres reports.

“We did not create this crisis and we are absolutely ready to put an end to it,” he added, believing that the current Polish-Ukrainian tension was caused by the election campaign in Poland on October 15.

“Emotions are high. Tensions in Poland could rise until October 15,” the minister said, as Poland’s populist government, backed by the country’s agricultural regions, touts its ban on Ukrainian grain imports as a way to protect Polish farmers.

Kuleba expressed confidence in the quick resolution of this crisis, noting that the two neighbors have no choice.

Instead, he condemned the speeches of Polish officials who depicted Ukrainians as ungrateful.

“I consider it a strategic threat (…) the active dissemination of the discourse about the so-called ingratitude of Ukrainians” towards Poland, one of its main allies in resisting the Russian invasion, the minister said.

“It’s just a lie. Ukraine is very sincerely and deeply grateful to the Polish people and the Polish government,” he said.

But “instilling in the heads of Poles a discourse about the ungratefulness of Ukraine and Ukrainians risks having extremely bad consequences for security,” said Kuleba.

Warsaw is now home to almost a million Ukrainian refugees who fled their country after the Russian invasion began in 2022, and Western military aid to Ukraine mainly passes through Polish territory.

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